


Contact

by stephanericher



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 21:48:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5556674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Though he’s trying not to give Ren the pleasure of hearing it, he’s glad they’re together again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Contact

It had been a false lead, full of rumor and misinformation, but intuition had told him that he’d been on the right track, that he’d find something (if not old holograms of Vader, something almost as important) but the search had turned up nothing. He’d gotten there and everything had been cold; he could have turned every damn planet and moon in the solar system inside out (including the uninhabitable ones) and it would have made no difference. And as it was the journey took a whole precious month, a month when the Resistance could have been up to who-knew-what, tracing out leads and leaping ahead.

He crushes all the TIE fighters in the bay with his bare hands; the officers flinch and cower and he doesn’t even give a damn about reporting them. And they should be afraid; for all they know they’re next—of course, that would make Hux very angry with him but right now he’s already angry enough with himself that anything Hux says or does (or doesn’t say or doesn’t do) can’t be all that much worse.

He slices up the auxiliary control room for good measure, and slams the most annoying lieutenant into a wall when she looks as if she’s about to ask him if he’s done yet. It only knocks her out for an hour or so, though; by the time they reach base she’s back at her station with her face all bruised up and her eyes refusing to move anywhere in Ren’s vicinity. Good. He stares out the window of the bridge, raising his shoulders and clenching his fist. The officer beside him makes a not-very-admirable attempt not to flinch.

They arrive at the base in midmorning; by the time Snoke is done with him it’s night and Ren’s exhausted. All his remaining anger and rage has been sapped away; all the adrenaline has left and in its place is soreness and aching and plain weariness, from the training session, from being on high alert for so long, from all the pent-up energy he’d taken out back on the other star destroyer. His quarters are close but he can’t face Vader now, not when he feels like so much of a goddamn failure—he stalks farther down the hall, well aware of the trooper unit scattering from several hundred meters at the sight of him, until he reaches Hux’s quarters, the door unadorned but cleaner and shinier than anything in the middle of space ought to be.

Hux changes the passcode once a week; Ren’s not going to bother guessing what it is this time, or even make a sophisticated attempt at fiddling with the fuse. He reaches out with the Force and crudely crushes it; the door hisses open and the keypad begins to smoke.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

Ren slams the door behind him. Hux glances up for a moment from the datapad in his hand and then looks back down, appearing very disinterested. Ren stands, for a few seconds, in the doorway, taking him in—it’s been a month, after all. It’s been a month and little (if anything) has changed; Hux still reads his briefings after dinner (and he’s probably also signing off on paperwork he technically doesn’t have to handle but is too much of a control freak to authorize without seeing and more-than-occasionally correcting) and he still takes it with caf sitting in bed on top of the covers after his evening shower. He’s more tired than usual, maybe; even from here Ren can see the dark circles under his eyes and he can feel in the Force how heavy the tension in his shoulders is weighing down.

He releases the catch on his helmet; another second and he slides it off, dropping it to the carpet. Then he pulls of his gloves by their spark-singed fingertips, tossing those down, too. Hux’s floor is too spotless, too sterile. Normally, Hux would say something about keeping the place a certain way, but they’re both too tired for that right now. Ren sits down on the edge of the bed.

“Take the boots off,” Hux says without a glance, taking another sip of caf.

Ren huffs; Hux ignores him, staring at the screen. The flicker of the light is reflected on his face, throwing shadows across his forehead where his hair’s come loose and fallen forward, like moonlight through trees in a forest. His face looks softer like this, less severe and tight. Ren leans back on his elbows.

“I said to take them off.”

Ren rolls his eyes—Hux can have his illusion of control, of keeping everything so spotlessly clean and just the way he likes it, especially those crisp white sheets (even if they’re just there to get slept in). But control through tension, sharp creases and corners and edges, is the way Hux operates, holding himself together like the surface of a glass of water almost overflowing, the dome holding itself together with its own pressure. He feels that way in the Force, perhaps less fragile—it would take more than a wobble to make him come undone.

Ren kicks his boots off; they land with separate muffled thumps against the carpeting. He flexes his feet; it actually feels good to have them free and out, if he ignores the coldness of the room. Which he really can’t for very long; he lifts the covers and dives under, rolling over to Hux’s warm body, pressing his face into the side of Hux’s leg. He drapes his arm over Hux’s lap; he can feel the steady movement of Hux’s breathing, tuned almost exactly in resonance with seconds on a clock. Hux sets the cup back down on the table and moves the datapad to his outside hand; Ren closes his eyes. And then Hux’s free hand makes its way into his hair, calloused fingers (he claims a soft-handed general who deems himself unworthy of a hand-to-hand fight is worthy of no respect from his soldiers, and Ren has thought about asking how often the soldiers are touching his hands but never has) rubbing circles across his scalp. It’s calming, like steady ripples in an ocean, building up to nothing, no tidal waves or chopping storm waters. Ren’s not paying much attention to the Force (and he really doesn’t want to right now), but he can feel a sort of swell around him, coming from Hux’s fingers. Though he’s trying not to give Ren the pleasure of hearing it, he’s glad they’re together again. And Ren supposes it doesn’t matter if Hux won’t give the pleasure; he’ll take it anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> struggled through this for about a week. then i saw the movie again. still trying to figure out these two so maybe cut me some slack.


End file.
